The embodiments described herein relate generally to monitoring equipment, and more specifically to condition assessment systems used to analyze operation of the equipment.
A condition assessment system may be used to monitor the operation of equipment. At least some known condition assessment systems include stored parametric curves that represent a baseline of normal operation of the equipment. Sensors included within the equipment provide outputs that are compared to the parametric baseline to detect anomalous operating conditions and/or shifts in equipment operations.
For fleet equipment, defined herein as equipment manufactured and sold for use in a plurality of remotely-located facilities (i.e., not one-off custom equipment), a fleet rule package includes generic parametric baseline curves for the equipment. Such generic parametric baseline curves may be based on average conditions in which the equipment may operate. However, variations in the local environment, variations in maintenance schedules, and/or other operational variations may cause equipment installed in a first facility to operate significantly differently than equipment installed in a second facility or within an individual site. In such cases, the actual operation of the equipment may mistakenly be interpreted as faulty operation if the operation varies enough from the parametric baseline curves within the fleet rule package, even though the operating variation may be caused by factors related to the local environment, rather than a result of equipment malfunction. False alarm signals may be generated when the sensor outputs from such equipment are compared to a baseline curve representative of normal operation of that equipment. Typically, to counteract such inaccuracies in the parametric baseline curves, the parametric baseline curves are manually maintained to ensure that the parametric baseline curves accurately represent proper operation of the equipment in the environment in which the equipment is installed. However, depending on the location of the equipment, the local environment in which the equipment is operating, the maintenance schedules, and other factors, maintaining the accuracy of such curves may be a time-consuming and difficult task.